Movie Reviews  |  PG-13  |  View Trailer  |  Dec 11, 2009

There's absolutely nothing wrong with a good biopic or sports movie. A good biopic usually tells you something about a famous person that you might not have known – for good or bad. Most good sports movies tell underdog stories where untrained teams defy the odds – even if they lose in the end. But nothing is more painful than bad versions of either genre. Director Clint Eastwood did a great job of blending two bad examples of each within Invictus.

The first half of Invictus focuses on the post-prison life of famous South African president Nelson Mandela. The second half tells the story of the South African rugby team (the Springboks) that Mandela challenged to win the world cup.

For those too young to know the story of Mandela, be prepared to learn nothing about him. Eastwood expects you to already know his whole story going into it. There's is no pre-prison information given. Invictus begins with him being released from prison in February 1990, then without any warning jumps to him being elected to the presidency. Although he won with the majority vote, the movie portrays him as not having any followers. It seems like no one – black or white – trusts in him nor his decisions.

Trying to unite his country, Mandela gets involved in the nation's most popular sport – rugby. The only problem is that the blacks associate the Springboks as being the oppressive white man's team. So, Mandela challenges team captain Francois Pienaar to take his losing team to the world cup, giving everyone in the nation something to take pride in – no matter the color of the skin.

The second half of Invictus shows the team in action, taking on the most challenging opponents in world. But there are two big problems with this: One, the team never does anything to get better. No training, speeches or pep-talks. Two, they never bother to explain any part of the game of rugby. You never know what's going on. One guy will kick the ball to the other team, who kicks it back in return, just to have that same first kicker kick it once more through the goal posts. I feel like I understand the made-up, complicated, barely-explained game of Whack-Bat (from Fantastic Mr. Fox) more than I do rugby, which is a real-life popular game outside the United States.

Unless you mastered in South Africa with an emphasis on Nelson Mandela and a minor in the sport of rugby, you're not going to understand any single part of Invictus.

And as if the storytelling wasn't bad enough, having Morgan Freeman play Nelson Mandela is a complete joke. I've never lived in South Africa, but I know what that accent is and isn't supposed to sound like – and it's not supposed to sound like that. Freeman sounds like post-dental work Freeman for the first half and completely gives up on the accent in the second half. Outshining him in the most wasted role of his career is Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar – who changes his entire persona for a small role that isn't challenging in the slightest bit. Damon has a chiseled muscular body and an amazing South African accent so thick and defined that it's one hundred percent unrecognizable as being his own voice. The performances between the two are night and day.

If you are dying to see a sports biopic, don't settle for Invictus – go see The Blind Side. As much as I hated The Blind Side, I have to recommend it as being a better film based solely on the fact that you can laugh at how bad it is. You never know what's going on in Invictus, making it painfully hard to roll your eyes at.


Photo credit: Warner Bros.